The night of Larry's unexpected call upon her at the Grantham, Maggie had pulled herself together and aided by the imposing Miss Grierson had done her best as ingenue hostess to her pseudo-cousin, Barney, and her pseudo-uncle, Old Jimmie, and to their quarry, Dick Sherwood, whom they were so cautiously stalking. But when Dick had gone, and when Miss Grierson had withdrawn to permit her charge a little visit with her relatives, Barney had been prompt with his dissatisfaction.
"What was the matter with you to-night, Maggie?" he demanded. "You didn't play up to your usual form."
"If you don't like the way I did it, you may get some one else,"
Maggie snapped back.
"Aw, don't get sore. If I'm stage-managing this show, I guess it's my business to tell you how to act the part, and to tell you when you're endangering the success of the piece by giving a poor performance."
"Maybe you'd better get some one else to take my part right now."
Maggie's tone and look were implacable. Barney moved uneasily. That was the worst about Maggie: she wouldn't take advice from any one unless the advice were a coincidence with or an enlargement of her own wishes, and she was particularly temperish to-night. He hastened to appease her.
"I guess the best of us have our off days. It's all right unless"--Barney hesitated, business fear and jealousy suddenly seizing him--"unless the way you acted tonight means you don't intend to go through with it?"
"Why shouldn't I go through with it?"
"No reason. Unless you acted as you did to-night because"--again Barney hesitated; again jealousy prompted him on--"because you've heard in some way from Larry Brainard. Have you heard from Larry?"
Maggie met his gaze without flinching. She would take the necessary measures in the morning with Miss Grierson to keep that lady from indiscreet talking.
"I have not heard from Larry, and if I had, it wouldn't be any of your business, Barney Palmer!"
He chose to ignore the verbal slap in his face of her last phrase.
"No, I guess you haven't heard from Larry. And I guess none of us will hear from him--not for a long time. He's certainly fixed himself for fair!"
"He sure has," agreed Old Jimmie.
Maggie said nothing.
"Seems to me we've got this young Sherwood hooked," said Old Jimmie, who had been impatient during this unprofitable bickering. "Seems to me it's time to settle just how we're going to get his dough. How about it, Barney?"
"Plenty of time for that, Jimmie. This is a big fish, and we've got to be absolutely sure we've got him hooked so he can't get off. We've got to play safe here; it's worth waiting for, believe me. Besides, all the while Maggie's getting practice."
"Seems to me we ought to make our clean-up quick. So that--so that--"
"See here--you think you got some other swell game you want to use Maggie in?"
Old Jimmie's shifty gaze wavered before Barney's glare.
"No. But she's my daughter, ain't she?"
"Yes. But who's running this?" Barney demanded. Thank Heavens, Old Jimmie was one person he did not have to treat like a prima donna!
"You are."
"Then shut up, and let me run it!"
"You might at least tell if you've decided how you're going to run it," persisted Old Jimmie.
"Will you shut up!" snapped Barney.
Old Jimmie said no more. And having asserted his supremacy over at least one of the two, Barney relented and condescended to talk, lounging back in his chair with that self-conscious grace which had helped make him a figure of increasing note in the gayer restaurants of New York.
It did not enter into Barney's calculations, present or for the future, to make Maggie the mistress of any man. Not that Barney was restrained by moral considerations. The thing was just bad business.
Such a woman makes but comparatively little; and what is worse, if she chooses, she makes it all for herself. And Barney, in his cynical wisdom of his poor world, further knew that the average man enticed into this poor trap, after the woman has said yes, and after the first brief freshness has lost its bloom, becomes a tight-wad and there is little real money to be got from him for any one.
"It's like this: once we've got this Sherwood bird safely hooked," expanded Barney with the air of an authority, flicking off his cigarette ash with his best restaurant manner, "we can play the game a hundred ways. But the marriage proposition is the best bet, and there are two best ways of working that."
"Which d'you think we ought to use, Barney?" inquired Old Jimmie.
